Posts Categorized: Fiction

40.1 SNEAK PEEK: ARABIC LESSON by LATIFA AYAD

Latifa Ayad is a Libyan-American writer whose fiction and nonfiction confronts issues of identity. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Crab Orchard Review, The Normal School, Whiskey Island Magazine, and The Stockholm Review. Her piece “Out and Out” won The Master’s Review/PEN America 2017 Flash Fiction contest. Ayad holds her MFA from Florida State University.

40.1 SNEAK PEEK: excerpt of DAY OF REST by KAITLYN ANDREWS-RICE

Kaitlyn Andrews-Rice received her MFA from American University, where she served as Editor-in-Chief of Folio. She is the editor of Split Lip Magazine, and her short fiction appears or is forthcoming in Booth and Copper Nickel. She lives and writes in Manchester-by-the-Sea, Massachusetts. Find her online @thelegitkar or thelegitkar.com.

Salvatore Pane is the author of the novel Last Call in the City of Bridges in addition to Mega Man 3 from Boss Fight Books. His work has appeared in American Short Fiction, Hobart, Paste, and many other venues. He teaches at the University of St. Thomas and can be reached at www.salvatore-pane.com or @salpane on Twitter.

40.1 SNEAK PEEK: excerpt of PESTILENCE by MIKE ALBERTI

Mike Alberti was born and raised in New Mexico. He received his MFA in fiction from the University of Minnesota. His short stories are found or forthcoming in Colorado Review, Crazyhorse, The Florida Review, Gulf Coast, One Story, and elsewhere. He lives in Minneapolis, where he is at work on a novel.

Cilia knew they were in for it when they found the mother on the good couch in the living room, sipping wine, looking at old photos in her college yearbook. “Look at that waist,” she said. “I was something.”

The older daughters, Margaret and Theresa, looked over the mother’s shoulders at the photos: skirt below the knees, freshly ironed shirt buttoned to the neck, relaxed hair curled under. “Were you really that dorky?” they asked at the same time. They looked at each other and laughed, proud of themselves, as if they had planned it.

“I was something,” the mother repeated, not as strong. Her words slipped and slid into one another, like a train wreck.

Margaret and Theresa laughed again. They were “almost seventeen” and “almost sixteen,” as they liked to remind everyone. They spent most of their time on the phone, giggling, a sheet over their heads for privacy, which made them look like giggling ghosts.

Anne and Cilia sat on either side of the mother. They had seen the photos before, but each time the pictures startled and confused Cilia. The mother had gone to a segregated school in New Orleans. Even though she had been segregated, the mother looked young and happy. She had a nickname typed next to her photo: “Bootsy.” It was full of promise, like a pair of new, black, patent leather shoes. Cilia didn’t understand who this “Bootsy” woman was. “That’s you? That’s really you?” she asked. Cilia turned to Anne. “Can you believe it?”